New York Legal Assistance Group sues the Board of Immigration Appeals for access to unpublished final decisions and orders

On June 8, 2018, New York Legal Assistance Group (NYLAG) submitted a request under the Freedom of Information Act to the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA), requesting that the BIA make all of its unpublished decisions since 1996 publicly available in an electronic format under 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(2) as the BIA’s decisions, whether published or unpublished, are “final opinions” and “orders” of the agency. EOIR denied NYLAG’s request, and NYLAG submitted an administrative appeal. On October 17, 2018, after EOIR and the BIA failed to respond by the statutory deadline, NYLAG filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, represented by attorneys at Public Citizen Litigation Group and NYLAG. NYLAG contends that the BIA’s failure to make its unpublished decisions publicly available in an electronic format violates FOIA or, in the alternative, the Administrative Procedure Act. Here’s the text of the complaint.

Disclaimer

Just in case you don't get it: The views expressed are solely those of the blog post author and should not be attributed to anyone else, meaning they do not necessarily represent the views of any organization that the post author is affiliated with or with the views of any other author who publishes on this blog.